The present discussion represents an outgrowth of an originally perceived need within social media networks to provide for more robust, efficient, and economically advantageous means for sourcing media content to consumers. In its infancy, the authors noted that social media provides a host of sources for multimedia content, no two of which may be viewed as equal for any given consumer for all time. In other words, the consumer will typically prefer one source to another for whatever reason and thus no two content providers are or will always be equal in the eyes of the consumer. The consumer should thus be able to opt for his or her preferred source of content when consuming content.
An example of this is illustrated by musical track suggestions or recommendations by way of a music recommendation and streaming services exemplified by PANDORA® Internet Radio. The authors noted that when such a service would recommend or suggest a track based on user preferences, the user may well have any given recommended selection in his or her own music library, or alternatively, access thereto via an alternative provider. If the user-consumer's legally-owned, library-housed copy of that selection could be sourced to the client instead of the streamed version from the recommending service provider upon a recommendation prompt, the user-consumer's consumption of his or her own copy could very well represent a more robust, efficient, and economically advantageous source for that content. Legal rights to each potential source in the foregoing scenario obviously differ, and thus it becomes necessary to properly manage and/or account for delivered content for compliance purposes.
Accordingly, the authors developed a system for providing either Indirect or Direct source initiation of copyrighted media to be (smartly) routed and consumed via a second Direct source of the same copyrighted media. One effect of such routing is to create a synthetic broadcast where the originating source of the media (e.g. an “Indirect initiating Source”) is not actually sent through to the media consumer but rather the consumer's own separate legally compliant “direct” access point and source of the very same copyrighted material is delivered instead.
An “Indirect Initiating Source” may thus be defined as any source whereby the consumer is not “directly” selecting the specific media to be consumed but that media selection is coming from a second “Indirect Initiating Source” whether that source is a computer-curated stream such as a digital “radio” provider or an individual live curator. Such (smart) routing or (smart) syncing of an Indirect source to a separate Direct compliant source uniquely enables a legal and compliant collaborative listening or viewing experience of media between two plus people when and where the access to the copyrighted material is derived from two plus separate compliant media sources of that material.
Alternatively, a “Direct Initiating Source” may be defined as a source whereby the consumer is “directly” selecting the specific media to be consumed and that specific media may be obtained from an optimal or preferred data resource location as selected from at least two locations to which the consumer has legal access, which optimization protocol is based upon pre-defined user parameters such as price efficiency and/or data quality. Such (smart) routing or (smart) syncing of a such a request to a direct compliant source uniquely enables legal and compliant listening or viewing experience of media when and where the access to the copyrighted material is optimally or preferably derived from at least two separate compliant media sources of that material to which the consumer has legal access.
Referencing allowed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/099,348 from which this application claims a benefit, the reader will there consider functionality for delivering an indirect request stream from a local server (e.g. digital radio as exemplified by PANDORA® Internet Radio); delivering an indirect request stream from a peer-connected server; delivering an indirect request stream from a second direct request source (e.g. iTUNES MATCH® or SPOTIFY® branded services or cloud locker like DROPBOX® branded services or any media in the cloud); delivering an indirect request stream from a peer-connected server based on a second direct request source's right to play or stream; delivering a direct request stream from a second direct request source based upon (a) price efficiency or (b) sound quality of source; and delivering a direct request stream from a peer-connected source based upon a second direct request source's right to play or stream.
Given the data origin-agnostic or cloud-agnostic aspects of that system, the system further provides (a) industry rights management (b) compliance monitoring and/or (c) compliance reporting where delivery of content is sourced from a secondary source other than the original requested source service including the examples there listed and as re-presented above. No known prior art reference provides a routing synchronization system for providing an optimally or preferably sourced broadcast to a consumer comprising certain smart routing mechanisms for routing select legally-protected content to a consumer having alternative and preferable source(s) therefor. The smart routing system(s) according to the '348 application thereby provide an optimally or preferably sourced broadcast ideally and patentably characterized by optimal source delivery of select legally-protected content to the consumer as prompted by either indirect requests, or direct requests.
The smart source routing according to the '348 application may thus be preferably characterized by certain scenario types including local server-based delivery of either indirectly or directly requested streams; peer-connected server-based delivery of either indirectly or directly requested streams; or legal access point-based delivery of either indirectly or directly requested streams, which delivery bases are optimally selected based on pre-defined parameters set or defined by the user, such as price efficiency or audio/video quality. The invention of the '348 application is thus directed to real-time synchronization of streaming media content from either indirect or direct initiation sources to a direct source. The ability to source an indirect content stream with an alternative direct source (e.g. a personal and privately owned legal source NOT delivered from a peer-to-peer or computer-populated network) with a governing compliance appliance is believed foundational to the invention of the '348 application.
In other words, a content stream provider such as a digital radio provider is requested by a consumer to consume content from the content stream provider. The content stream provider and the consumer each have different legally owned access points to the content that is be streamed. The consumer may have a legal right to a direct request for this content form the consumer's own source or library, while the provider may stream content from a different source or library. A direct access point to the content from the user's own library is thus believed relatively more efficient or cost effective than obtaining access to the content from the provider. If the content is thus sourced from a consumer's own library, the content delivery will or should have an impact on compliance reporting by the content provider. The compliance appliance according to the invention of the '348 application accurately tracks and reports the resulting revenue generation for copyright holders.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0304233 authored by Roberts et al. is believed to be among the most pertinent prior art related to the subject invention. The Roberts et al. publication discloses certain Systems and Methods for Bridging and Managing Media Content Associated with Separate Content Networks and describes an exemplary system having at least one computing device located within a local media network configured to firstly generate a media index of local media content stored by one or more media content access devices located within the local media content network and cloud media content stored by one or more cloud computing devices located within a cloud media content service network and secondly manage the local media content and the cloud media content based on the media index and on a predefined media management heuristic.
Notably, Roberts et al. do not teach how to map media content across providers. In other words, the Roberts et al. teachings only appear to instruct on how two devices may be able to share a stream from a single provider, there being no corresponding mechanism or means (a) for mapping media content across providers, or (b) for streaming the same media content from a second provider when the media content is identical to the media content provided by a first provider. There is no reference to metadata mapping algorithms, nor is there any reference to any fingerprinting mechanisms to identify media content, and properly attribute media content to or associate media content with owners thereof across content providers.
Roberts et al. make mention that two devices could conceivably share the same media content session, but the method taught by Roberts et al. would present an extraordinary security risk over a public network exemplified by the Internet, and thus Roberts et al. specifically limit their methodology to local area networks. Roberts et al. indicate that the mechanism for synchronized viewing would be a shared media session. This assumes the retransmission of copyrighted data from one device to another across the Internet. Such a system would only be legal if both devices belonged to the same user (accessing a common content library owned by the user).
The invention of the '348 application, by contrast, is operable to transmit and re-create a broadcast across multiple users each of whom have their own rights or legal access to media content libraries, and in some cases their own respective rights and legal access to the very same media content library (e.g. two users accessing the SPOTIFY® branded library via two separate legal access points or accounts). Equating the Roberts et al. teaching to the invention of the '348 application would essentially result in mass copyright violations, and could be considered peer to peer file sharing.
Roberts et al. fail to teach a routing and synchronization system operable with one or more data sources within a network-based media content playback environment for providing an optimally sourced media content broadcast to a consumer, which routing and synchronization system is characterized by comprising a computer-implementable application for generally synchronizing and routing consumable, legally-protected media content to the consumer from an optimal routing instruction fulfillment source as prompted by routing and playback instructions generated via a routing instruction generation source.
The optimal routing instruction fulfillment source according to the present invention is preferably affiliated with at least one legal access point. The computer-implementable application is more particularly operable to generate the routing and playback instructions via the routing instruction generation source for governing playback of the consumable, legally-protected media content via a content-delivery primary channel; establish an instruction-passing secondary channel (in parallel to the content-delivery primary channel) to the consumer over an operable network infrastructure; and pass the routing and playback instructions to the consumer via the instruction-passing secondary channel for sourcing the consumable, legally-protected media content to the consumer from the at least one legal access point.
From a review of the foregoing citation in particular, and from a consideration of the prior art in general, it will be seen that the prior art perceives a need for an invention as otherwise taught by the specifications of the '348 application, but further colored or modified by the inclusion of simultaneous social content provision and consumption in the context of the underlying media broadcast experience. Further, the prior art perceives a need for a system whereby a user can control the source and type of social content overlay within the context of the underlying media broadcast experience, which latter feature is reflective of the specifications otherwise set forth in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/048,480 also incorporated herein by reference thereto, and as summarized in more detail hereinafter.